


Advanced Corpse Pose

by nicht_alles_Gold



Category: Kurosagi Shitai Takuhaibin | Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service
Genre: Comedy, Gen, M/M, Murder, Yoga
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-18
Updated: 2014-07-18
Packaged: 2018-02-09 11:19:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1980957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nicht_alles_Gold/pseuds/nicht_alles_Gold
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yata and Numata find a body... Or maybe they don't. They lie poorly... a lot. They solve the crime... well, Yata does, anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“L-lets get in the back, there’s more,” Yata breathed out hard, “er, room.”

“I think there’ve been too many corpses back there for me,” Numata pulled Yata closer, the leather of his jacket creaking, “It’s not very…conducive.”

“Conducive?” Yata asked skeptically, wondering where he’d come up with _that_ word when he was here stuttering (maybe Numata was stealing his vocabulary right out his mouth), before their lips came together again, but he pulled away, “This is really, um…” One of his knees was pulled up as if to block Numata’s approach, but the other leg was sort of jammed against the gear shift. “Uncomfortable,” he finished, “I meant the back seat.”

“Ooh, right.” Numata let go of Yata’s shirt. “You first.”

Yata nodded and carefully withdrew himself, then went between the seats to the back. Numata followed suit, but with a little more difficulty, gracelessly half falling into the back. Yata laughed, until Numata grabbed his head, ruffling his hair and pushing him back, pinning him against the window. The hairs on the back of his head stuck to the fogged glass as Numata assaulted him with a mostly sloppy, breathy kiss. Yata lifted his hand, covering Numata’s scratchy chin hairs. Numata stopped, and gave him a mock hurt look.

“It just feels kind of funny, that’s all,” he said as an excuse, with a sheepish smile.

“Oh yeah?” Numata grinned, shifting his body closer, “Know what else feels funny?”

Yeah, that did feel funny. Yata squirmed, then slapped his hand away. “Quit it,” he complained, wrapping his arms around Numata’s head, “We can’t get too…” He was going to say heavy, or something, but instead settled with a sort of light, playful kiss of his own that Numata made serious, because he didn’t seem to know any other way.

But they were in a semi-public area, and it made them both a little nervous. Numata more in the “then let’s hurry up” way, and Yata in the “let’s take it easy so it’s not too obvious” method. They were parked in the most private place Numata knew, in a parking lot for some shrine far away from the entrance and sort of near some trees. Yata had suggested they go to the shrine like how a normal couple would go on a date, and then get something from the vending machines, nothing too obvious or formal, but Numata had voted on doing a regular old make out session. Which was… alright. Yata guessed he probably would’ve been giving a mythology lecture if they’d gone to the shrine, and this was pretty fun too.

Their bodies pressed closer. Yata made a noise in his throat, a little annoyed at the feeling nagging his brain, telling him to channel, please, which he was pretty sure only existed to distract him in these moments. Especially right now, when he felt good. He felt close and a little too warm in a nice way, and smothered by the body against him.

Numata knew it was too much… too much for right now, where they were, but he didn’t want to stop. There was something about being crammed into a car, acting like they were teenagers who could be caught at home, kissing desperately and… maybe half dressed. His hand perused under Yata’s shirt, and as it brushed against his stomach he could feel him suck in. It wasn’t really his way, to do much besides kiss and then… y’know, more serious stuff, but he put his head to the side, kissing Yata’s neck. It was a good way to get someone riled up, he’d heard someone say once, and it seemed to work, as Yata arched and writhed and muttered something, presumably a great compliment.

“H-hey, your thing…”

“W-what about it?” Numata asked, trying to adjust his lower body’s presence against Yata; he hadn’t thought it’d be enough to feel quite yet, but it was embarrassing…

“No, sorry, not… not _that_ thing,” Yata coughed, face flushed, “ _That_. Your pendulum.” He pointed to the rear-view mirror, where the chain was swinging. Numata groaned, slumping back into the seat. “Do we have to?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

It took a few minutes for them to cool down and adjust their hair and clothes and try and look collected. Yata suggested they call everyone, but Numata reminded him that as they had the sole vehicle, they might as well find the body first to see if it was worth the call. Plus they’d have time to cook up an excuse.

“Maybe it’s a really dedicated priest who can’t give up his connection to life,” Numata imagined as they hiked the trail, “Or a fat tourist that keeled over.”

“We should check,” Yata frowned, watching the pendulum swing, “There could already be an ambulance on the way.”

They were quiet for a minute, until they started to veer off the path and into the bushes that Yata became skeptical of his idea that the body had already been found. “So what’re we going to tell everyone?”

“Um, that we were at the shrine?”

“Why would we be here? We’re Buddhist.”

Numata frowned. “…Maybe they won’t care?”

“I think they’ll be curious.”

“We can say we were out eating or whatever and decided to take a walk? We’re typical Japanese who are... polytheistic?” Always putting that degree to use. “Or we were driving by and the pendulum started going.”

“You’re not even supposed to have the car! Remember how Sasaki gave that lecture on saving gas?”

“We, um… did a moving job on the side…?”

“How much did we get paid?”

“You know, there’s such a thing as too thorough!”

“W-watch out!”

Numata stopped and looked down before he took another step. Lucky, as there was a dead body lying right in his path. “Woah. Oops,” he laughed, “that coulda been bad.”

The victim was a woman, and was definitely a victim, as there was a screwdriver sunk into her right eye socket, her body was turned on its side, and her purse’s contents were scattered everywhere. They were about as far from the trail as you could be, as right beyond was a chain link fence, with houses right on the other side. They were on a bit of a hill, though, so it wasn’t a surprise no one from the houses had seen, but it wasn’t really the best place for a murder, either. Anyone could’ve seen them stray from the trail, and you couldn’t get in at night to dump the body, either.

“Hey, do you think she was killed here?” Numata asked, crouching down, “There’s no blood on the ground or anything.”

“Hmm. I don’t know.” They had all acquired some amateur detective skills, but it was still hard to say. There was blood around her eye, but not much on the ground. “Maybe she was killed while on her back and someone moved her sideways later? And it was either a very specific robbery or not one at all.” Yata looked over the spilled items, gingerly using his foot to push away some leaves, looking for more. “It doesn’t look like her cell phone was left.”

“Her ID’s gone, too,” Numata pointed out, opening the cutesy red wallet he’d found, “Well good thing this isn’t an easy job, it’d be way too disappointing.”

“Let’s go down to the front and call everyone. If we stand around here too much, someone might wonder what we’re doing.”

After they determined that the body was well hidden enough (Numata had nearly tripped over it, so it was a little tricky to see, but he still insisted on kicking a few leaves over the woman like it was good camouflage), they went down to the front, made a few quick calls, and then waited. Yata actually did get to talk about folklore for a little, and Numata got to eat ice cream from the parking lot vending machines, so their date wasn’t a complete failure.

Sasaki was first on the scene, already primed with an annoyed expression for the two of them when she got off the bus with a handful of European tourists.

“Do you not know the meaning of ‘not driving the van around for non-business reasons’?” she chided Numata, apparently not finding Yata worth blaming, “Why are you here, anyway? Thinking about converting?”

Oh, she asked after all, but it seemed like a joke. Yata opened his mouth to respond in turn.

“We thought it was Buddhist,” Numata said instead, very nervously.

She perked an eyebrow. “ _Yata_ thought a shrine was Buddhist.” Typical skeptical Sasaki, not believing obvious lies.

“Um, that’s not it,” Yata interjected, before Numata could say anything more incriminating, “We went to get something to eat and I thought it might be interesting to walk around here because I’ve never been to this one. And Numata wanted ice cream.” There was evidence in his hand. “Sorry, it’s my fault we took the car, I wasn’t feeling well today.”

Sasaki looked like she was going to add something when someone called out from the street. “Yo!” Karatsu jogged up to the three of them, putting his phone back into his pocket. “Numata, you gave me the wrong bus stop, it was a block off. What’s up?” He took one look at them and frowned. “Where’s Kereellis?”

“I was about to say that,” Sasaki sighed.

Yata felt his face go red, and Numata was looking a tinge pink. “I, um, I took him off in case the body was bloody, I’ll go grab him,” he muttered, holding out his hands for the keys.

They were silent while Yata ran off. “What are you two up to?” Sasaki asked, eyes narrowed, “You’re both terrible at lying.”

“N-nothing,” Numata stammered, checking his phone for the millionth time, “Wonder where Makino is…”

“Hey, you’re not doing a job on the side without letting me in on it, right?” Karatsu asked, “That construction thing I’m doing is almost over.”

“Of course not, man, I’d tell you first thing.”

“Sorry,” Yata said when he jogged back, “Maybe we should have Kei-chan meet us—”

He slid the hand puppet completely onto his hand. “MAKE ME A BLINDFOLD FOR THE NEXT TIME YOU HAIRL—”

Yata pretended to cough and bit his tongue as Numata wrung his wrist. Even if they did this normally, they were shot twin suspicious looks. How’d they never noticed the family resemblance before?

“Let’s go look at it,” Sasaki said, leading the way into the shrine area. She didn’t look all that happy to be walking off the path and into bushes and weeds wearing nice white shoes, but that was before they reached the spot where the body was.

“Was” being the operative word.

Now the spot was empty—no purse, no screwdriver, no body.

Sasaki rubbed her temples. Numata got down on his knees to brush away leaves, like he’d done a great job of hiding the body, and held out his pendulum vigorously, as if it maybe had just decided it would like to lie in the sun, please, and moved a few feet.

“There really was one!” Yata insisted, crouching to look for some of the purse items among the nature stuff, “We should have taken a picture…”

“I guess it’s not like we’ve never seen them walk off before,” Karatsu suggested, but he didn’t sound too assured, “Did you guys see a zombie come back through the gate?”

Both of them thought back. “Er, we weren’t really paying attention, but I think we would’ve noticed a lady with a screwdriver in her eye, yeah,” Numata snarked, swatting leaves at Karatsu, who kicked a shower of them right back. Sasaki backed away as they continued a few times.

“Oh! See!” Yata glimpsed something white deep under the shrub he was inspecting, and reached under it, wrinkling his nose at the thought of some weird bugs crawling up his sleeve, then into his ear, then into his brain, but if he used the other hand, he’d have to wash Kereellis again, and that was more of a pain. He drew the item out, holding it up to Sasaki. “This probably came from… um…” It was a kitchen timer.

“Hey, a lot of girls have weird shit in their purses,” Numata justified, pulling leaf bits from his hair.

“Not like _that_ ,” Karatsu snorted.

“OVER-EXAGGERATING VIRGIN APES; OUR FEMALE’S CARRY-BAGS CONTAIN INFINITE INTERSPACE CAPACITY.”

“You don’t have to brag about that,” Yata said in a hushed tone.

Sasaki sighed and pulled out her phone, talking as she typed. “I’m telling Makino not to bother. It’s not that I don’t believe you,” her eyes flicked up, looking to Yata and Numata in turn, before returning to the screen, “but like the saying goes, no body, no crime. No pay, no point.” She put her phone back into her pocket. “You’re giving us rides, too.”

* * *

 Numata huffed a sigh as Karatsu ducked out the door with a quick “see ya” at his apartment, and Yata switched to the front, a frown firmly on his face. “That didn’t turn out too well,” he admitted, picking at the yarn topping Kereellis’s head, “I can’t believe it just vanished like that. Could we really have missed it walking out?”

“I don’t _think_ so,” Numata said, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel as he waited for traffic to pass, “It’s kinda like when that… you know, afro bicycle guy was around, except more annoying.”

“Hey, remember, he revived a lady who was impaled in the eye that time too.”

“HOW COINCIDENTAL.”

They looked at each other. “He did say he was going to continue,” Yata recalled, “I thought he might have moved on to another city. I don’t know how he would’ve found the body at the shrine, it’s not exactly on a bike route.”

“Maybe he saw the van?”

“That’s true. But why would he bother us this time?”

“MAYBE IT WAS YOUR LITTLE CAT-FRIENDLY GIRLFRIEND? OH, I FORGOT, YOU PREFER THEM TALL, DARK AND STUPID!”

“She was in middle school!” Yata protested, a little flushed, “Not to mention… nevermind. Maybe she was sent away for school, I don’t think she was with Nire last time we saw him.” It was a relief that they’d stopped those revenge ceremonies. “Why are we the only ones who don’t revive corpses purely for vengeance?”

“The concept sort of lends itself, I guess,” Numata shrugged, suddenly accelerating around a corner, “Maybe it’s a good business strategy.” He wrinkled his nose. “I guess I can see the appeal but, um, it’s just a little too creepy for me, y’know.”

Yata nodded. “That’s a good thought, it’s profitable in the right hands. Let’s say there’s someone with a revival technique we’ve never met, and that’s why we didn’t recognize anyone going in. But we’d need to know how they found the body in the first place, and how it got away.”

“ _Maybe_ it never left,” Numata suggested, with a joking tone. Immediately, he sobered up. “Shit, actually they could have just killed them there.”

Yata swallowed hard. “I guess we’ll find out. Let’s just hope that’s not true.” Because then might feel slightly guilty for being there but not preventing a murder. He pulled the timer from his pocket, looking it over for any kind of distinguishing mark. There was a katakana “yo” in pink permanent marker in the bottom right corner, but that didn’t mean anything. “I wonder if we could track down Iijima, he seems like the kind of person who would know if someone was encroaching on his territory. Then again, he doesn’t have the ability to track down bodies, so he wouldn’t know what he was missing.”

“YOU’RE NOT SUGGESTING THAT GOATEE HERE,” Kereellis crossed his little arms and squashed his head, managing to look horrified, “IS USEFUL! YOU MIGHT AS WELL GET A DOG; IT’D DO THE JOB TWICE AS QUICK, AND BE LESS MOUTHY.”

“I’m ten times more useful than a dog, black hole-for-brains!”

“IS THAT SUPPOSED TO BE AN INSULT?”

“You could say it was a compliment, in a way.” Yata tapped his lip. “We should see if Sasayama can help us get in contact with him; he has a record so they should have his number or address.” He hated to think their best bet was leaving cryptic notes on corpses instead of picking them up, and hoping he’d make a call.

“Hey, we could go to some bike stores and see if he was seen,” Numata said, snapping his fingers like this was a brilliant plan, “He’s gotta need supplies sometime.”

“WOOOW, GREAT IDEA, BUT MAYBE YOU SHOULD CHECK EVERY RESTAURANT IN TOWN, HE NEEDS TO EAT SOMETIME. EVEN BETTER, WHY DON’T YOU OFF YOURSELF AND SEE IF HE TRIPS OVER IT!”

Numata made a lunge for the puppet, which zipped out of the way, to press against the window. “Pay attention!” Yata yelped, head jerking forward as Numata looked up and realized applying brakes was imperative.

“I like it better when the puppet’s off,” Numata grumbled to himself.

“As soon as it is, you get very…” Yata cut himself off. The look Numata shot him (even though sunglasses, it was telling) made him fidget. “Touchy.”

“I’m not touchy about anything!”

“I meant physically.”

Numata slowly grinned in a very stupid way as he looked forward at the road. “Yeah, so?”

Yata smiled a little, too.

“GAG ME WITH A SPOON,” Kereellis choked, with an oddly trendy manner of speaking.

* * *

“Shinjuku office, Sasayama speaking.”

“Hi, this is Yata.” Slightly too long of a silence here. “Yuji. From Kurosagi.”

“Oh, sorry, I’m getting’ old and losing hearing and all that.” He didn’t even try to sound honest. “To what do I owe the honor of talking to you instead of Sasaki? You guys aren’t in jail, are you?”

“No, nothing like that.” Yata idly played with the plastic UFO hanging off his phone with his spare fingers. “Um, I was wondering if you could get a phone number for us.”

“What do you need it for?” Apparently this wasn’t going to be as easy as he thought.

“We’re just looking for someone who we think can help us solve a case.”

“Is this a case that’ll end up costing the city money?”

“Well, maybe. I’m not sure.” Sasaki must’ve been tough. Or maybe she was just more organized and knowledgeable. “I don’t think so. We really just need the number and we’ll be out of your way.”

“Hmm. I can do that if you do me a little favor.”

“What?”

“My cousin needs help moving next weekend. You haul her stuff. With a smile, and no griping.” That last line seemed oddly imposing.

“Y-yeah, I think that’ll be fine.” Maybe they could get a tip if they were friendly enough? If this cousin was anything like Sasayama himself when it came to money matters, there was no chance.

“Alright.” Yata could hear the the sound of chair wheels rolling. He shot a thumbs-up to Numata, prepared with a pen and scrap of paper. “Who’re you looking for?”

“Iijima, the guy we met that one time, with the AED? I don’t know his first name, though.”

“It’s Kazuya.” The sound of typing on a keyboard was noticeably absent over the phone. “I’ve kept track of him since then, and he doesn’t have a phone number listed. He’s pulled in every so often for trespassing, small traffic violations, but because he has priors, they’re a little tough on him. His listed address is still his parent’s home, and I doubt their number will do you any good.”

“Oh, really…” Yata tipped the phone away from his mouth briefly. “We might be out of luck,” he said to Numata, who sighed in response.

“I want that favor out of you, though,” Sasayama continued, “So I’ll tell you that the last two times he was taken in he was found near the port.”

“Great, thanks a lot,” Yata said, relieved.

“One last thing… is your whole crew in on this, or just you?”

Yata hesitated a little too long. “Um, it’s everyone?”

Sasayama snorted into the phone, and gave them the address for his cousin’s apartment. “Don’t be late,” he advised, before hanging up.

* * *

“I think this is too much of a long shot,” Yata frowned, looking at the sea through the open window of the van, “It just doesn’t seem likely we’ll find him this way.”

“Don’t think we have much choice,” Numata said through munches of some shrimp flavored chips he’d picked up from the convenience store, “It’s about the same way we met him last time.”

Yata nodded, but did wish it weren’t so true. He wrinkled his nose. “It smells kind of gross down here.”  
”Maybe it’s a corpse.”

“There’s only that many corpses at ports in movies.”

“What? They’re all over the place down here, I bet.”

“SHOCKINGLY, THAT’S TRUE OF SPACEPORTS, TOO!”

Yata had to point at the perfectly still pendulum on the rear-view mirror for proof.

“Fine, but you’re still not giving us any better idea of how to find him.” Numata paused to dump the dust from the bag into his mouth. “I think that leaving notes on corpses is better.”

“That would look too guilty,” Yata said, skeptical, “Even if we could disguise our names, if anyone figured it out, we’d be kind of screwed; it’d be as good as a confession in the eyes of the police.”

“Alright, alright. Who doesn’t have a cell phone now, anyway? My _grandparents_ do.” Numata scrunched up his trash, then looked at Yata. “Sorry, did you want some?”

“No, I’m not hungry.”

“You didn’t eat anything earlier, either. You feeling okay?” Numata knew because he’d stayed over, much to Yata’s embarrassment, “Maybe it’s karma because you said you were sick yesterday.”

“YOU MIGHT NOT WANT TO EAT, BUT AT LEAST FEED ME!” Kereellis collapsed, arms weakly waving. “NEED… SUSTINENCE…”

“I’m fine, really.” Plus it felt weird to be cared for, and he looked straight ahead, only to glance back when Numata reassuringly stroked his hair. He couldn’t help but smile, and leaned in to give him a quick kiss.

Someone rapped on the back window, loudly, making them both jump and jerk away and fumble to look for the source. “Is it the cops?” Numata asked, craning his neck to look at his set of windows.

“N-no, it’s…” The person was outside his door, and rolled back a few paces. “I can’t believe this actually worked.”

“WE’RE HITTING THE COINCIDENCE JACKPOT.”

They both got out of the car, Numata rounding the front. “What’re you guys doing here? You’re not waiting for someone to die, right?” Iijima sounded like he believed they would do that. Which. Well, how much money did this theoretical person have? “Only two?”

“THREE.”

“Yeah, just us,” Numata nodded, “We’re on our own.”

“We were looking for you, actually,” Yata brought up, “we were hoping you could help us.”

Iijima shrugged, and shifted so he wasn’t straddling the seat anymore, but standing more comfortably. “Sure, if I can.” He didn’t seem too happy with the idea, but maybe his penance would be their salvation. Or maybe he was just curious how they’d managed to discover his location.

“We just wanted to ask if you know anyone who’s been reviving corpses around town. We don’t really know how or why, but thought you might’ve seen something.”

Iijima frowned, narrowing his eyes in recollection behind his yellow glasses. “Not that I know of. Sorry.”

“Really? Damn,” Numata huffed, scuffing one boot on the ground, “Guess we’re out of luck.”

“Why’re you looking for someone like that, anyway?” They quickly explained their story, minus all the making out and panic, including how they’d half tracked him down, as Iijima listened without a word. “If it’s only happened once, I wouldn’t worry about it. Maybe you made a mistake. Then again, you’ve seen a lot of dead people.”

“Since it was at a shrine, maybe it was, like… you know. Some kind of holy revival thing?” Numata suggested, sounding unconvinced.

Iijima smirked to himself, apparently agreeing with Numata’s skepticism. “Since you sound lost, I’ll give you my number. I don’t leave my phone on, but I’ll call you if I hear anything. Leave a message if you need to, but I just have it for emergencies.” This was pretty evident by both the age of his phone (compared to most people around town, anyway) and that he had to retrieve it to check the number.

“Woah, watch out, someone might mug you for that,” Numata grinned, earning an eye roll from Iijima.

“LIKE YOU’RE ONE TO TALK, MR. POVERTY.”

“Hey, the only reason Yata’s not in the same boat is because he has student loans. He’s digging himself an even deeper grave!”

Yata felt his stomach sink, and told himself not to think about it. Maybe that was why he wasn’t feeling well. “U-um, anyway, we’ll call you if we find anything. Or if we figure out what happened, too.”

Iijima looked over all of them, then rubbed his head. “Yeah, okay, I still don’t get you guys. See you later.”

Kereellis was an acquired taste few people could stand anyway. “Bye,” he said with a wave, forcefully keeping his left arm down. Iijima had once called him a sock, he remembered.

Iijima put one foot on the pedal like he was about to go, before he paused, his leg stretched to keep him balanced. “Hey, by the way, what’re your names?” he asked somewhat shamelessly.

“I’m Yata Yuji.” This was the second time he’d had to give his name out like that recently.

“Numata. Makoto,” Numata said with a sort of puzzled face, like he’d forgotten.

“Okay, see you.” Iijima pedaled off with a half wave, and the two of them watched him go.

“AND I’M KEREELLIS, YOU AFRO ASSHOLE! GET A HAIRCUT!” Kereellis suddenly shouted, making Yata go red. 

* * *

“That certainly could’ve gone worse,” Yata said, even breaking into a smile, “Actually, that worked out pretty well.”

“Yeah, it’s kind of suspicious.” Numata was frowning, mostly because the direction they were going meant there was traffic and he wasn’t in the mood for it.

“Suspicious?”

“Oh, no. Weird, I guess.”

“I TOLD YOU THERE’S BEEN A LOT OF COINCIDENCES.”

“Are you saying it’s more than that?” With the technology Kereellis had access to, maybe...

“NO. JUST A FLUKE.”

“Oh.” Disappointment set in.

“Sooo. Feeling any better? We can stop and pick up something to eat,” Numata brought up, looking forward to the next intersection, “Get out of this shit for a while, too.” Maybe he was just too used to flying around cars with complete carelessness.

“Yeah, sounds—” Didn’t seem to matter what he said, Numata was busy taking the corner as sharply as possible, and zooming down the emptier street, apparently with a destination in mind.

“I saw this café around here once,” Numata explained, zipping through a just-turned-red light with a quiet “oops”.

“Don’t get a ticket,” Yata groaned, rubbing his temples, “Sasaki would kill us for… more than just that. How’re you going to explain the missing gas?”

“We’ll work that out when that happens. Hey, bonus, this place’s pretty cheap.”

Well, good. Numata found somewhere to park, and they both got out to walk. There were a few somewhat shady characters out and about, and Yata tried to make Kereellis look less conspicuous, somehow. Maybe if he wore a matching green shirt, people would think he was some kind of trendy accessory. Not in this neighborhood, though.

The café itself was nice enough, and wasn’t too busy, and the suspect groups of people were quiet with whatever suspicious business they were up to, so it actually worked out well. It really was cheap, so props to Numata for having a good eye. They ended up staying later than expected, nursing sodas and chatting. Yata felt satisfied they got to have something like a normal cute date for once, and Numata was happy because he got to eat a little more decently.

They even briefly held hands, right before they got to the car. It was really nice, and Yata almost suggested they go for a walk, but of course, that had to be ruined. Not by Kereellis, for once, who was apparently “ignoring them” after Yata had agreed with Numata that he needed to shut up while they were eating, but by an odd clinking on glass sound.

“What’s that?” Numata asked, tilting his head toward the van, “It’s not a bomb or something, right!?”

“No, I don’t think so.” Yata approached the car, peeking in. “You can’t… feel that or anything?”

“What’re you talking about?” Numata joined him, looking in the front window (how, at night and wearing sunglasses he could see anything was forever a mystery). “Oh. Fuck.”

His pendulum was going insane, to put it simply. It was swinging voraciously, and Numata opened the door to grab it, slipping it onto his finger and holding it out, instantly making the two of them weirder than everyone else on the street. A young couple scampered past and gave them strange looks, before the girl giggled and plunged her head onto her guy’s shoulder.

“Damn! There’s a ton of them! Like, probably more than ten!” Numata grinned, jogging across the street, Yata following behind, “Jackpot! Unless it’s one reeeeally fat one...”

“More than ten? This might be _bad_ ,” Yata said, already breathing hard and feeling somewhat embarrassed about it (maybe he really was sick).

“Might be cash you mean!” Numata called back, sticking his free hand sideways and rubbing his fingers together in a classic “money” symbol.

“Don’t yell about that here,” Yata said, though the words were mostly lost to himself, “Maybe it’s a hospital or crematorium, have you thought of that?”

“ARE YOU SUGGESTING HE’S _CAPABLE_ OF THINKING?”

Numata ran jaggedly across the street, Yata coming behind and waving in an “I’m sorry!” way to the car they briefly blocked.

“It’s here!” Numata shouted, “It’s—!” He cut himself off and spun around, confused. “Um…”

“Don’t tell me… you lost it…” Yata panted. One person vanishing was one thing, but ten?

“ARE YOU BROKEN AGAIN, GOATEE?”

“What d’you mean, ‘again’, felt-fucker?” Numata growled, grabbing Yata’s wrist, and earning several more stares from people going behind.

“Ow, stop! Just try and…” he paused to swallow and try and stop sounding so pathetic from their short run, “Find where it came from.”

Numata let go of him, after a scalding glare at Kereellis’s glassy eyes. “Okay, um, I _swear_ it was going to be right around there.” He pointed to a building with multiple businesses in it. A few of them had signs in Chinese, one acupuncture, one herb shop, one sort of suspicious looking massage parlor. One place had a very Indian painting of the positions of chakra on the body, which seemed to be a yoga studio, and the last place was empty. “Those massage places can be pretty manky but they usually don’t have _that_ many dead bodies in them, just some Cambodian hookers.”

“None of those places could even hold ten people,” Yata frowned, “Except maybe the…” He drifted off because the door of the place he was thinking of, the yoga studio, opened, and a group of people filed out.

They didn’t quite… look like the yoga type, was the thing. Few of them were young, and the majority of them were men, with watches that were a little too nice, a couple of them in sunglasses or hats, or just looking away from the street. Many of them gave Yata and Numata a look that said “why are you standing here, you moneyless cretins?” or didn’t look at them at all. There was only one younger guy, and two of the three women were foreign and prissily pretty, unlike the usual lithe, athletic types who stereotypically practiced yoga.

It looked more like a meeting of a secret society, and they shot each other looks after the people had all vanished.

“Why do I feel like we just saw one of those youkai parades?” Numata asked.

“I might have preferred that.”

“Yeah, I don’t think they’d be assholes like those people.” Numata went for the stairs, and Yata came behind. The pendulum was still having no reaction, and they approached the door carefully, like those ten bodies would suddenly spring out of it. Yata looked over the signs posted in the windows, listing out the programs offered at this place. Pretty inexpensive… it didn’t seem to match the people who had just emerged, with its New Age Crystal Workshop and Ultimate Tantric Body Cleansing Program, but who knew what rich people were into. The only slightly odd thing was that the studio seemed to have closed two hours before, but there could easily be a special class or lecture, right?

Numata put his hands against the glass to try and see in. “It’s dark in there… oh, there’s someone way in the back.” It looked like a small office area, but they were just closing the door. “I couldn’t see them at all. I think it was a lady.” He was about to knock on the door, but Yata stopped his arm.

“There’s not really a reason to go in here, right? I mean… there are no bodies, as far as we can say, and they’re closed. If you think it’s a good lead, we can come back during the day.” Especially if the person who was in there was a single woman, it might be a little weird for two guys to burst in with questions about if, maybe, she hadn’t noticed ten dead people, they wouldn’t blame her because they were so well-hidden under some yoga mats.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Numata sighed, taking one last peek inside, as if there were anything to see.

* * *

“I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU LIED. I’M TELLING, THEN MAYBE HE’LL,” Kereellis shuddered overdramatically, “BREAK UP WITH YOU.”

“Shh!” Yata hushed, thankful he had just gotten off the bus before that outburst, “We’re not like… um, nevermind.” Were there always cute giggling girls walking around this place or what? With their staring eyes and the way they looked at each other when they saw him having discussions with a puppet. “We’re not… really _really_ dating or anything… And he doesn’t need to know about this.”

“ALRIGHT, I’LL KEEP QUIET. BUT YOU OWE ME BIG TIME.”

“What kind of favor could I do for you?”

“…SHUTTING DOWN THE GOVERNMENT’S ANTI-AIRCRAFT MISSILES, MANUFACTURING A TELEPORT PAD, SMUGGLING SPACE PARASITES INTO THE HUMAN POPULATION…”

“I don’t think I could do any of those.”

“YOU COULD DO THE PARASITES, YOU HAVE A DIGESTIVE TRACT.”

He rounded the stairs and took them slowly. “Alright, I don’t _want_ to do any of them.”

“THE PARASITES WOULDN’T EVEN KILL YOU! YOU MIGHT END UP A LITTLE MUTATED, BUT I ALWAYS THOUGHT YOU PINK SQUISHIES WOULD LOOK NICER WITH A PAIR OF MANDIBLES.”

Yata grimaced and pushed the door open. There were a small group of people waiting, some of them with mats under their arms. A man looked over at him and approached. “Are you here for the beginner health class?”

Yata nodded, and was handed a clipboard to sign in. He’d just added himself to the roster the night before; luckily it was a class you could add anytime. He was here for the double benefit of: a. he could try to investigate, and b. maybe this could actually help him feel less ill. He couldn’t tell Numata because he would try to come and wouldn’t really fit in, and would probably stick his pendulum all over the place instead of actually doing yoga. Plus he’d make jokes about the position names.

The guy nodded at his name, and tried to subtly look down at Kereellis. “We’re about to start,” he said, not able to hide the look of “what a weirdo” in his eyes, “Everyone else has done this before, so don’t worry if you’re behind, just do what you can and don’t push yourself.”

What proceeded was a partially terrible experience of Kereellis making jokes about the position names, until Yata took him off amidst glares of toned young housewives, and then a surprisingly nice session. And by the end, he felt really good, nice and stretched and relaxed, and he’d managed to only fall over trying something once. If this place was full of dead bodies, they only did something for the atmosphere. Maybe they’d been wrong, maybe it _was_ one of the other places… or maybe Numata had just been off again.

But he felt guilty not doing any kind of investigation, so when the class was over he approached the teacher. “Do you have any night classes?” he asked, in his mind very sneakily, “I have class during the day, and passed by last night, and there were some people leaving.”

The teacher only looked confused, and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “There weren’t any that I know of, but I could ask the owner. She might do some private classes; they wouldn’t be for beginners, though.” He looked over Yata’s head (which wasn’t hard, as he was fairly tall), eyebrows raising. “Oh, she’s here. Hey, Rie-san…”

Yata turned to look at her. Apparently she had just come through the door, maybe while someone else was walking out, because he hadn’t noticed her before, with an assertive pose, a large purse hanging off her shoulder. She wore a face mask, a hooded sweatshirt pulled up, and colored sunglasses, which clashed with the clientele.

It was almost like she recognized him, because she glared at him with a surprising amount of fury and Yata had no idea what he could have done. “Daisuke, this boy,” _boy?_ “Isn’t allowed here.”

“Did he do something…?”

“He’s a stalker.”

“Me?” Yata pointed to himself, going pale as he felt the stares focused on him from the rest of the women in the studio, “Maybe you’re thinking of someone… else…”

The teacher (Daisuke, a name he would never need again) was taking a step toward him. Yata hadn’t quite noticed the muscles in his arms when they weren’t focused at him.

“I’ll go!” Yata said, ducking out of the way, and that woman, but he tried to get a decent look at her, and the anger in her unblinking eyes. Or maybe she was surprised…?

“LIKE ANYONE WOULD STALK A BITCH LIKE YOU!” Kereellis choked out just as they hit the door in a hurry.


	2. Chapter 2

“Hey, where’ve you been?” Numata was sitting on his couch, a bowl of dry cereal sitting next to him, and he was mid-munch, “Jogging…?”

Damn, he’d hoped Numata would still be sleeping. How long had he been up? Because then his lie might not work, since he’d been gone for far more than an hour. “I went for a walk. To think and… things.” Whatever you did on a walk.

“WE CONVEIEND WITH NATURE. IT WAS BEAUTIFUL.”

Numata seemed satisfied, and went back to eating. Yata sat next to him, after sweeping a few crumbs off the couch. “So, um, I was thinking about it, and we should look back into that place again. Maybe later tonight, and see if those people are back, or if you can pick up bodies?”

“Okay,” Numata mumbled while swallowing, “Change your mind about going during the day?”

“Y-yeah,” he felt bad lying, but it would also be annoying to start being truthful now, “It was pretty suspicious. It’ll be easier to do after class and we have a club meeting.”

“Oh, right, I told Karatsu we could do a little body searching the other day, if that’s cool.”

Yata nodded, and picked up the bowl so he could scoot up against Numata. Maybe if he could find another cheap place, he could try a little bit more yoga. Or maybe he just needed to do something physical once in a while that wasn’t lifting a body.

“How are you feeling today?”

“I’m okay. Are you worried?” Yata tilted his head a little. From here, he could sort of see under Numata’s sunglasses. Someone was actually concerned about him… life was strange.

“Not really,” Numata obviously lied, “I just know you don’t have any money so there’s not much point in delivering your body.” Unfortunately that joke came out a little more grimly than was meant, especially because Yata couldn’t think of any kind of comeback. Where _would_ he want his body delivered? There really wouldn’t be much of a point. “I’m kidding,” Numata added, sounding awkward, “I’ll get them to do that thing where they crush you into a diamond or whatever, then have it implanted in a lightsaber model.”

Yata couldn’t help but smile (could you have that done?).

“HEY, YOU’D REMEMBER TO TAKE THE POOR PUPPET OFF FIRST, RIGHT?”

“If Yata dies, first thing that happens is you’re going in the garbage.”

“I’D FIND A NEW HOST AND TRACK YOU DOWN, MEAT-BOY!”

“I’d shred you up and use your eyes for ping-pong balls!”

“Can we stop talking about me dying?”

“Never.”

“NOPE.”

Yata shut his eyes and put his head on Numata’s shoulder, soaking in the reverie which was crunching cereal.

“Hey,” Numata said, after a few minutes, “Don’t you have class at eleven?”

“That’s not today.” Wait. Yata sat up and pulled his phone from his pocket. Shit. He groaned, and got up to get some normal clothes on. “You have to give me a ride.”

Numata held up his bowl. “Can I have this to-go?”

Yata grimaced. That bowl, though made of cheap plastic, was part of a limited, lottery-only set printed with Ultraman designs. “Um, can you put it in a bag?” he asked as he pulled on a new shirt, and fixed his hair, “I like that one.”

Numata looked around himself like a bag would suddenly appear because he wanted one. Then he shrugged and tipped the remainder of the cereal into his mouth, dropping the bowl back onto the couch. “Okay, let’s go,” he said between crunches, his cheeks puffed out.

“AND YOU FIND _THAT_ ATTRACTIVE?”

“Shut up,” Yata muttered to himself.

* * *

 

Yata had barely made it to class on time. He didn’t feel as well anymore. Maybe he had an ulcer or one of those other horrible things. Could worrying about ulcers give you ulcers?

When he wandered into the club room, everyone was standing around the table, inspecting their newest customer. They exchanged greetings, and he put his backpack down, joining them like they were about to have a family dinner. “You already went out looking?” he asked. The corpse was a woman, around college age, and for a dead body she seemed relatively unharmed, except for a few fleshy areas that looked gnawed.

“Yeah, we figured it wasn’t worth waiting,” Karatsu replied.

“Picked one up like, right off the bat,” Numata bragged, snapping his hand open like he was playing with a yo-yo but letting his pendulum hang loose instead, “Corpse ahoy.”

“GREETINGS CAPTAIN DUMBFUCK, MIGHT YE EVER TIRE OF FINDING IMPOVERISHED CORPSES, WE SEEM TO HAVE PLENTY OF THOSE.”

“We waited for you to get here for Karatsu to work,” Sasaki cut in, before any kind of argument could begin, “Though I’m not sure why.” She gave Karatsu a bit of an impatient look. He just shrugged.

“You know… teamwork?” He pushed up his sleeve, hand hovering over the dead woman.

“Hold on, like, one second,” Makino requested, grabbing her purse and digging through it, “I keep forgetting… aha!” She took out a small digital recorder and moved closer to the head of the corpse. “Ready.”

Numata crossed his arms. “What’s that for?”

“Don’t worry about it. I mean, what if something bad ever happened, like… legally or something, y’know?” Makino’s expression turned smug. “Not that you would _get_ it, but isn’t it interesting to have a recording of the deceased’s voice?”

“…You’re more excited about that idea than worried about legal shit,” Numata scoffed, mostly quietly to himself. Little weirdo.

“Can I start now?” Karatsu asked, glancing at the recorder as if it would give him performance anxiety, “Or do you want a video, too?”

Makino perked an eyebrow. “I wonder what—”

“Let’s begin,” Sasaki said, with the air of enforcement. Karatsu nodded and laid his hand on the woman’s forehead, and was silent.

The silence stretched on for a few moments. Makino tsked and tapped a shimmery pink nail against her recorder, Numata leaned closer like there could be something wrong with it, and Yata pretended to adjust how Kereellis sat on his arm.

“MAYBE SHE WAS A MIME.”

Numata snorted. “That’s what I was thinking…” It was weird when they agreed, even on jokes.

“Is she gone…?” Sasaki asked, tilting her head.

Karatsu shook his head, eyes still closed. “She’s like… not paying attention…? It’s kind of weird. Hey. We want to ask you…” He went silent again.

“ **What? Where is this? Am I still dead?** ”

“Still?” Sasaki mused.

“That tends to be how these things work,” Numata smirked. Making fun of a corpse was sort of low, really.

“ **Well I’m supposed to be waiting for the signal… what’s going on, is she here? I want to be done now.** ”

“Who?” Karatsu asked.

“ **I can’t tell you, gosh! I’d really like to know what’s going on… You’re all creeping me out…** ”

“Kinda bitchy for a corpse,” Numata sniffed, “I guess you’re allowed to be kinda slow when your brain’s dead.”

“YOU’D BE THE EXPERT.”

“ **Corpse? No… you’re wrong, it was just temporary…** ” Most of the bodies didn’t seem _this_ confused, it was almost sad. “ **Why am I still dead… why hasn’t she…** ” The voice tightened. “ **Did she betray me… where did you find me, she should have been there too!** ”

“There wasn’t anyone else there,” Karatsu explained, “Unless we missed something?”

“Where did you find her?” Yata inquired.

“By the port where we…” Numata drifted off, realization dawning on him that they weren’t supposed to talk about that. Then again, it sounded very strange just ending there with that “we”, and Sasaki lifted her eyebrows in curiosity.

“Where you were…?”

“Whale watching,” Numata said blankly.

“Whales won’t go into shallow water like that.”

“Er. Dolphin watching, I meant.”

“H-he didn’t mean anything!” Yata interjected, thankful his hair was hiding the lies in his eyes, “We went there to…” It dawned on him there weren’t too many activities to do near the ocean when there was no beach or shops. “We went… fishing…”

Makino grinned in a very silly way, and even Karatsu snorted. Yata narrowed his eyes at that corpse-groper across from him, because that seemed to be a very knowing snort, then looked to Numata, who noticed and quickly found the pockets of the corpse to have very interesting buttons on them.

“One second,” Yata said, whipping out his phone and quickly texting “Did you tell Karatsu?” to Numata, who pretended he didn’t notice the buzzing in his pocket, smiling guiltily.

“Um, yeah, about this lady, crazy, huh…” he sputtered weakly.

“Alright. Just come clean, please,” Sasaki sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose, “It’s obvious what you two are doing.”

Yata swallowed hard. Numata was back to the buttons. “YOU’LL GET NOTHING FROM US! TORTURE US ALL YOU WANT!”

“Shut it,” Sasaki said sharply, to Kereellis which was completely unusual, and the puppet’s face caved in with shock, “Are you two going out?”

They were both silent again. “TAKE YOUR CYANIDE PILLS,” Kereellis divulged to Yata in the quietest way he could, “IT’S THE ONLY CHOICE.”

“Well?” Sasaki asked.

“Oh, come on, it’s like, not a big deal at all!” Makino laughed, breaking the mounting silence, “No one here cares!”

“Hey, you told _her_?” Numata pointed at Makino.

“You told Karatsu!” Yata argued.

“No I…” Numata cut himself off from lying. “Okay but only because he said he met a girl I should hook up with.”

“You’re such a liar,” Karatsu said, “I would never subject a girl to you.”

“Say that to my fist!”

They grappled for a minute. Sasaki had been silently crossing her arms, and finally spoke up. “And none of you thought to tell _me_.”

The rest of the group went guiltily quiet. “Um, sorry Sasaki,” Makino apologized first, “I guess this is a bad way to find out…”

“Oh, I knew. I just can’t believe no one told me.” She actually sounded a little hurt.

“Um, you knew?” Yata asked.

“Of course. A month ago I walked in on you kissing on the couch.”

“Wait, you saw that after all? You didn’t say anything.” Numata frowned. “We thought you didn’t notice.”

“How could I not?”

“So you’ve actually known longer than anyone,” Yata surmised, “I don’t think we had even gone out once then…”

Makino’s eyes went wide. “Wow Sasaki, you’re amazing. Except I thought you were going to say you hacked into their email accounts and read something…” she crinkled her nose, “I don’t even want to think about.”

Yata went fully red this time. “We don’t do that kind of…” He still didn’t want to be judged by Makino.

“Oh, don’t deny it, it’s fine!” Makino actually seemed excited by this prospect. It was a little worrying. “Writing secret love letters, like, forbidden love and all that, it’s so cuuute.”

“Okay, love is great and all,” Karatsu said, sounding like he was a little uncomfortable, pointing down at the body, “But can we finish this?”

“Y-yeah, let’s do this,” Numata agreed, a little pink around the cheeks, also sounding uncomfortable (but for him, it was more because that “love” word was being thrown around an awful lot).

Karatsu placed his hand back down. “ **Ew! You people make me sick!** ” the body spat out, like it’d just barely been holding back the entire time, “ **Two men?! Disgusting!** ”

“HEY, JUST CAUSE YOU’RE DEAD DOESN’T MEAN YOU CAN’T GET WITH THE TIMES, LADY!” Kereellis said defensively, to everybody’s surprise.

“ **…Fine, whatever. Just stop talking about it.** ”

Yata looked down at the puppet. “I didn’t think you would care about that.”

“YOU SELFISH MEATBAGS ACT LIKE YOU’RE THE ONLY PLANET THAT’S GONE THROUGH _THAT_ DEBATE. WE HAVE TEN GENDERS AND MULTIPLE SPECIES AND IT DIDN’T TAKE US TWO THOUSAND YEARS TO ACCEPT CROSSOVER.”

“Hey, she’s fading a little bit,” Karatsu warned.

“ **Maybe she did betray me, I don’t want it to be true… where you found me, you should find… her… she was there, she died before me…** ”

“Do you want us to take you somewhere?” Karatsu asked, then added, “For a very reasonable fee?”

“ **Just take me home… my name’s Eriko… Ebihara… I’m from Saitama…** ”

“Great, not far,” Numata reasoned, “That’ll save us a few bucks.”

“ **Maybe it didn’t go off… and we both…** ”

Karatsu frowned, removing his hand with a shrug. “She couldn’t finish that thought, I guess.”

“Didn’t go off? Hm. Any ideas?” Sasaki mused, pursing her lips.

“A bomb?” Numata ventured.

“Let’s be realistic.”

“An alarm?” Makino suggested.

Sasaki tilted her head thoughtfully. “Do you think there could have been another body down there you missed?”

“I didn’t pick up anything else,” Numata said, “I guess it’s possible I missed it because we found this one?”

“It wouldn’t hurt to go back and look,” Karatsu suggested.

“Maybe you should,” Sasaki agreed, picking up her laptop, “I’ll stay here and track down her information. Hopefully someone’s been looking for her and will appreciate our service. We’re not running a non-profit here.”

“I’ll work on the body,” Makino chimed in, bending in to observe the corpse’s arms, “I think some cats got to her…”

“Nice. Let’s get going,” Karatsu said, heading for the door.

“One moment, Yata,” Sasaki said, laptop under one arm, and she put her other hand on his shoulder, guiding him toward the corner like he was going to be put on time out. There wasn’t much space for privacy in this room. “I’m telling this to you because you’ll listen,” though the way she was saying it, it was more likely it was because he was easily intimidated, “That van is owned by _me_. I don’t care about anything else, but if you two _defile_ it… There will be consequences.”

Maybe everyone’s goal was to make him permanently red-faced. Yata nodded weakly. “I’LL DO MY BEST TO DISUADE THEM,” Kereellis promised, in his normal loud way, “BIG KEREELLIS IS ALWAYS WATCHING YOU TWO.”

“Urg,” Numata groaned behind them.

* * *

The ride was only a little awkward. Karatsu was completely normal, perhaps because he already knew and accepted everything, but it was hard for Yata and Numata to do the same, accepting that everyone _else_ knew. That wasn’t going to change anything, though. Probably.

When they stopped in the parking lot, all three of them looked to Numata’s pendulum, hanging dutifully as always from the rearview mirror. It wasn’t moving any more than usual. “Might as well poke around since we’re here,” Karatsu said, getting out of the car and stretching, the others following suit, “We found her right over there.” He pointed toward a tall stack of shipping containers, before leading the way.

It was a little creepy, the narrow alley formed by the containers, and it brought out all of Yata’s claustrophobia, and all his flashbacks of how nervous first-person dungeon crawlers made him.

“She was here,” Numata pointed out once they’d reached about the middle of the first line of containers, “Kinda a weird place, but there’s definitely no one else nearby.” He stuck the pendulum out in vain, it didn’t even stir. “Unless it was moved. Well, both of them could’ve been moved? Who knows, she wasn’t really helpful.”

Karatsu was taking the initiative to continue down the row, and turned where it ended. They followed him through the mini-maze, Yata half sure one of the containers would try to fall on them. It was spooky around here, and they hit a dead end after only two more turns. “Let’s walk around a little then head back?”

“MAYBE YOU SHOULD STAY HERE.”

“Why?” Yata asked, because they were already leaving the containers anyway, “There’s nothing here.”

“JUST A SUGGESTION. NEVER MIND THE EXTREMELY INTELLIGENT EXTRATERRESTRIAL.”

“Maybe if you weren’t so vague about things all the time—” He bumped into Numata, who had stopped at the turn. “What’s…?”

Numata put a finger to his lips, then, as quietly as he could, took the car keys from his pocket and held them back. Kereellis accepted them without Yata thinking about it.

“Hey, what’re you doing?” a woman’s voice asked, and Numata stepped forward into the path and turned toward the exit. Yata nearly followed, then forced himself to stop, and go a few steps back, just based on the seriousness of Numata’s expression. Her voice sounded familiar…

“Nothin’,” he said, so nonchalantly that it was hard to believe he was ever bad at lying, but if he didn’t have sunglasses on, his thoughts would be instantly betrayed.

“Both of you come here. Anyone else?”

“No,” Karatsu asked, his voice perfectly innocent, “Our third’s out sick.”

The woman was quiet as the two of them walked. Yata wanted to lean against the containers but was nervous about making a sound, just using Kereellis to cradle the keys silently as his listened. His mouth went dry, and his heart was pounding, so he tried to just breathe, in his mouth, and out his nose, quietly. Luckily they were by the water, so he didn’t need to be perfectly silent with all the ambient sounds, but this was a nerve-wracking situation.

A shot rang out, pinging against the metal of one of the containers. Yata dropped to the ground, biting his tongue so he didn’t yelp.

“What the fuck, lady?!” he heard Numata call out, wishing he would just… shut up around someone with a gun.

And now he couldn’t hear anything at all, they were too far. He strained for any kind of sound, and it was quiet for several minutes. Only then was he rewarded with the sound of closing car doors, and a revving engine. Still, he hesitated to move, just in case… it was a trick, or something. Paranoia was setting in, and he only barely braved getting out his phone and sending a panicked, somewhat difficult to understand group text to Sasaki and Makino.

He couldn’t wait too long, however, and he forced himself to be brave and stand, brushing off his pants and clutching the keys tightly so they wouldn’t jangle as he walked.

“Do you think it’s safe?” he whispered, finding it slightly unfair he couldn’t communicate with Kereellis psychically considering how they were attached.

“HOW WOULD I KNOW?” As if he hadn’t just predicted danger moments ago.

Carefully Yata peeked around the corner, and took a step, and then nearly had a heart attack as his phone began to ring. He fumbled it out of his pocket, hands shaking, and ducked back behind the container. “S-Sasaki?” he answered.

“Huh? This is Iijima. Is this…?”

“It’s Yata. I’m sorry, I’m kind of in the middle of—”

“It’s important. I just saw your guys get kidnapped.”

“You’re here? I am too, I’m by the shipping containers.” He tried to keep his voice from wavering as he finally went back through the way they’d come, feeling like he’d been right to find the towering containers creepy. Now they seemed to mock him with their height, and he hurried out of their midst, seeing Iijima over by the car and jogging to him. “W-what are you doing here?” he asked.

“You know why,” Iijima scoffed, eyes narrowing, “What’s going on?”

“I’m not sure…” Yata admitted, rubbing his head, thoroughly confused, “We just came here because we found a new corpse. It doesn’t have anything to do with what we talked about with you, as far as I know.”

“So you didn’t see her?”

“No.” Yata paused. “Did you? Did you see where she went?”

“Yeah, but she just went back to the street and could’ve gone anywhere from there,” Iijima said, tilting his head up thoughtfully, “Her car was silver, I think a Toyota, not sure what kind.” Of course he didn’t know cars. “She wasn’t wearing anything unique, but she stopped by your car and reached under it.”

“Like… she put a bomb there or something?” Why were they standing right next to it?

“Why would I be standing here if it was?” Iijima rolled his eyes. “She took something _off_ and put it into her pocket. Right after she cuffed them both and put them in her car.”

“Maybe it was… a tracking device?”

“GOOD THINKING, DETECTIVES! NOW WE JUST GOTTA FIGURE OUT WHO DONE IT.”

That was more puzzling than anything else, though. “I just can’t think of… you’re sure there wasn’t anything about her that stood out?”

“No. I was kinda far away, so I couldn’t even see her face. She was dressed like… not in sweatpants or anything, but exercise clothes? A lot of people walk around in that stuff now.” Iijima himself was something of an example, but his voice carried no note of irony.

“Exercise… You mean like… yoga pants?” Realization slowly dawned on him.

Iijima snapped his fingers. “Yeah, those.”

“Then I know where to go! I hope so, anyway.” If not, well… “Numata gave me the keys, let’s go.” He opened the back so Iijima could stash his bike, then got into the front, turning the car on and… um… he pushed down the clutch and brake. “And then the… gas…” he said to himself, earning a blank stare from Iijima, “and… release the clutch…?” The van jerked forward, and stalled immediately. “Shit,” Yata croaked, banging one hand on the wheel in a rare display of frustration.

“Look, I know you’ve only seen me on a bike, but I actually _can_ drive.”

They quickly switched seats, Yata giving some directions, and then sending them along to Sasaki too. He wanted to try to call Numata, or text him something saying they were coming, but that would probably be a terrible idea. He had to be better than that, and just nervously played with his phone. Iijima may have known how to drive, but it had been a long time and he obviously needed to concentrate.

“YOU A LITTLE DOWN?”

“I’m not in the mood.”

“THERE’S MORE THAN ONE FISH IN THE SEA!”

“Don’t say that!” Iijima shot him a weird look by this point.

“ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT, DON’T STRAIN YOUR CHAMBERED HEART.”

Yata just didn’t respond, just looking out the window and checking the time on his phone again. At least they were making good time.

“I’M JUST TRYING TO GET YOUR MIND OFF IT. AT LEAST TAKE THIS MOMENT TO TRY AND FIGURE IT OUT.”

“I don’t think I can…” Do which, get his mind off, or figure it out? Maybe it would help. At the least, he would know why that woman did what she did. “You don’t mind if I talk this out?” he asked Iijima.

“Who can resist a puppet show?” was the sarcastic response, which Yata took as a go-ahead.

“So the woman from the yoga place… R… Reiko…? Rie, she became really upset when I was there and I had to leave, like she knew me, but she hid a lot of her face…” He narrowed his eyes as he tried to remember. “She hid her face because I had seen her before, I’d guess.”

He looked at Kereellis like he would facilitate this process. “But I really don’t remember her.” He bit his lip thoughtfully. “She… was really pissed off.” He remembered her glare pretty well, because people usually looked at him that way when they thought he was pretending to be Kereellis, and then freaked out, thinking he was crazy, and there was a subtle difference. He hadn’t even been wearing Kereellis when she’d seen him. And…

“HAVEN’T YOU MET WITH A WOMAN RECENTLY?”

Yata frowned, closing his eyes. “It… couldn’t have been _her_. She was definitely dead, we checked.” They were pretty familiar with corpses, but they were also pretty familiar with insane happenings.

“Who was dead?”

“The one that moved, the one we told you about.” He tried to remember more details about the corpse. The general look of it, her hair and her clothes were different, but maybe… purse she’d had hanging over her shoulder; it had been the same, hadn’t it? Those peculiarly colored sunglasses, he remembered Numata almost stepping on them, and how he’d worried they’d have ruined evidence. Now that he was sort of reaching a conclusion of her identity, it seemed so obvious. “But she had a screwdriver in her eye.”

“Haven’t heard of special effects?” Iijima asked, turning a corner. They were nearly there now. He wondered if Sasaki had contacted the police, because she hadn’t been responding to him. Should they just barge in? What if they weren’t even there…?

“Urg… that _would_ explain why there wasn’t much blood, if she just faked it.” He shook his head. How stupid, they hadn’t bothered checking if the screwdriver had been a handle and couple of centimeters of shaft carefully arranged under her eyelid. “The biggest problem is that woman really _was_ dead, unless we’re going to start doubting Numata’s dowsing now.”

“FOR THIS HYPOTHETICAL SITUATION, LET’S GIVE HIM THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT. MAYBE SHE TOOK SOME DRUGS? SHE SURE DIDN’T LOOK LIKE A WINNER TO ME.”

“I don’t know there’s a drug that can induce death, er, of course they have ways to induce comas and stuff, but that’s not really the same.” Although, that idea seemed to connect to what someone had said. “Like… that other corpse said. She was surprised that she was dead, she seemed more sure she was alive than anyone we’ve talked to before. If you induced death and no one was there to snap you out of it, you would just stay dead.” Like, duh, he could imagine Makino saying, but it helped to think aloud. This wasn’t too much of a ridiculous conclusion, right? Nothing weirder than what they’d faced before.

“So, are you saying there’s a _yoga_ instructor who can make people appear dead? Why would anyone do that?” Iijima sounded unconvinced, but on its own, it was an incredibly far-fetched idea.

“Yoga is like a religion to some people. There are spiritualists who claim to going without food or water for decades, and who go into trances where they can’t be burned, things like that. If you could defy death, you could get a lot of followers, and that could be some money?” Yata sighed. “Seems like a big stretch, but still.”

“THINK OF THE FOLLOWERS, PLUS TV SHOW, PLUS DOCUMENTARY, PLUS MERCHANDISE. SPACE TO YATA, THERE MAY BE AT LEAST ONE MAJOR EARTH RELIGION BASED ON A CERTAIN CHARACTER COMING BACK TO LIFE.”

“You’d have to be an incredible narcissist to want to be the… next Jesus,” Yata sputtered, actually just annoyed he hadn’t come up with that, “Rebirth’s a major theme in most religions.”

“I ONLY HAD TO PAINT A BIG RED ARROW POINTING YOU THERE. ANYWAY, YOU HAVE A BIGGER PROBLEM NOW.”

“What?”

“SHE _DOES_ HAVE A GUN AND HAS CAPTURED YOUR FRIENDS.”

Right. “It might seem insensitive to point this out, but they’re not my friends, and I’m not going to get shot for anyone,” Iijima said, not exactly making Yata feel better.

“Neither of us will get shot,” he hoped, “She could’ve just killed them by the ocean and put them right in if she wanted to, and it would’ve made more sense. She probably wants something.” Probably was the key word.

“IF YOU’RE GOING TO TRY AND CONJURE UP A PLAN, YOU MIGHT WANT TO GET STARTED,” Kereellis advised, as they were just pulling up to the place.

“That’s the car.” Iijima parked in front of it, in a way that would require she have to back up and maybe waste a few moments if she made a run for it.

“Okay, I’ll… I’ll go in there, and you wait outside. Try to call the cops I guess, or maybe Sasaki,” Iijima raised an eyebrow, “er, the girl… woman who’s in our club. Long black hair, glasses…”

“LARGER THAN AVERAGE FAT TO MAMMARY GLAND RATIO THAN THE TYPICAL HUMAN FEMALE.”

Iijima nodded at that description, and Yata tried not to think about Kereellis noticing such a thing. “Or they may show up.” Yata looked out the window, up to the door of the place. He couldn’t see anyone standing there. “Just don’t get noticed. I would wait, but I… can’t leave them there.” There were times he’d managed to be brave before, and they usually ended awfully.

He really didn’t want to end up riddled with holes, however.

“I’ll wait at the bottom of the stairs in case anyone tries to go up,” Iijima said, tipping his head toward said stairs, “I can’t believe _I’m_ going to call the cops…” He reached into the back seat to grab his backpack.

“What’re you bringing that for…?” Yata asked, already dreading the answer.

Iijima shrugged and didn’t look directly at him. “You never know, man…”

Yata swallowed in determination. “You’re not going to need it.”

“The time it would take me to get back down and up if I _do_ need it could make a difference.” He rounded the front of the car to join Yata, and they approached the stairs. “Better safe than sorry when it comes to resuscitation.”

“YOU FEELING CONFIDENT ENOUGH?”

“Y-yeah.”

“WELL, YOU MIGHT WANT TO FORGET ABOUT IT.”

“Why?”

There was a noise behind them. Iijima seemed to turn faster than possible, to make a run for it, or maybe lunge for the guy, he couldn’t tell, but the muscular yoga teacher was faster, landing a punch that knocked his sunglasses off and making him stumble back into the building. Yata turned around and put his hands up. “You gonna try anything?” Daisuke (look, he ended up needing to know his name after all) asked, threateningly.

“N-no…”

“Come on, you guys are going up there and I’m calling the cops. I’m not having some pervert with a camera in his hand puppet stalking around where I work.” He looked at Iijima, who was rubbing at his steadily reddening cheek. “Let’s go.”

He herded them up the stairs, and unlocked the door, keeping a wary eye on the two of them. “I know it looks bad, but there’s something you really need to know,” Yata attempted to explain, only to be ignored.

“Inside, both of you.”

They did as they were told, only to be greeted by Rie whirling around, gun in hand, and aiming it at them. Daisuke pulled the door closed, and therefore noticed last, expression showing his shock as he raised his arms as well.

“Rie, what…?”

“Oh, Daisuke. This isn’t about you. I… just you two, over here,” she ordered, gesturing with the gun toward where Numata and Karatsu were sitting in the corner, both with their arms behind their backs.

Iijima and Yata nervously made their way over, sitting on the ground as well. “Hands, keep your hands in front of you,” she said, voice jittering. She was fairly untrustworthy holding a gun, so they did as they were told.

“…Iijima?” Karatsu asked, narrowing his eyes at the guy who joined them.

“So do you have some kind of plan involving getting captured or what?” Numata grumbled, “It’s going really well.”

Yata was quiet, feeling demoralized. “Hey asshole, things didn’t go like we thought they would. This guy was going to bust in here all alone,” Iijima hissed back, “Knowing there was a gun, just for you two captured dipshits.”

“Okay, Yata’s really brave, what the hell are you doing here?” Karatsu whispered.

“They asked me about disappearing corpses? You weren’t in on that?”

“No. I have no clue what’s going on.” He aimed an awkward kick at Numata’s foot. “Did you and Yata get us into this? Your relationship is cursed.”

“It’s not _our_ fault!”

“ALL OF YOU ARE CURSED!”

“Shut up! All of you! Be quiet!” Rie screamed, aiming the gun at each of them in turn. “I need to think.”

Daisuke was standing with her, and she just left the gun in the hand pointing at them, looking up at him. “Daisuke, I don’t know what to do.”

“What’s going on, Rie? You can talk to me. We can work everything out.”

“I… I… okay,” she shuddered, nearly crying, “They just really messed things up for me. But, if you help me Daisuke, I think we can get things back to normal.”

“Yeah, I’ll help you with anything, okay? Why don’t you put the gun down, we can talk about whatever you need.”

“Why would I put the gun down?” She seemed to be recovering, and wiped her eye. “I think we’ll need to kill them.”

“Woah,” both Numata and Daisuke said at the same time, but only Daisuke continued, “Kill them? That won’t help anything. Just… here, give me the gun, and I’ll hear you out.”

“Why do you want it?”

“It just makes me nervous, I’ve never seen one in real life before,” Daisuke admitted, sounding sheepish, like being a big guy meant he should know about firearms, “It’s easy to make a mistake when you’re holding a gun. I’ll take it and put it in your office, and we can close the door so no one can get it. We can turn these guys into the police for… being stalkers,” even he sounded like he didn’t quite believe this anymore, “And things will work out.”

“Woah. We’re not calling the police. No way!”

“Okay, but you can’t _kill_ anyone, and I’m not going to stand here and _let_ you kill anyone!” He held out his hand. “Just give it to me. I know you don’t want to shoot anyone.”

She shot him in the face. He crumpled onto the floor, and she let out a long breath. “I hired you for your body, not your negotiation skills,” she huffed, not entirely coolly like a seasoned killer, but like someone who was vaguely used to the idea.

All four of them had winced at the shot, but Iijima rubbed his head miserably. “You didn’t have to kill him,” he growled, anger laced through his voice.

“Hands,” she demanded, and he slid his hand back onto his knee so it could be seen, “I don’t want to have to kill you, really. But I can’t trust you, either. Shit, what am I going to do…?” She paced back and forth, talking to herself. “If I can get out of here, I can go back… but I need it… Shit.” She approached them, gun outstretched. “Okay, which one of you has it?”

“Has _what_?” Karatsu asked.

“My _timer_ , don’t act like you didn’t find it on Eriko, okay?”

“Timer?” Numata asked, eyebrows raised, “We don’t…”

“No, I… I have it,” Yata admitted, “Had it, I mean. I left it somewhere…”

“What do you mean by ‘had’?” Rie asked, whipping the gun to point at him.

“I just don’t know if I left it at home or school,” he said, flinching, “I don’t have it with me.”

“Shit. I can’t get a different one…”

“Hey, you don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Numata said, tilting his head back when the gun was focused on him, “But now I’m kinda curious why you need that so much you’d kill for it.”

She frowned. “You’re not trying to buy time or anything, right?”

“Nope. I’m just wondering why you don’t just buy a new timer.” If things hadn’t looked so grim, maybe they could have taken a moment to appreciate the wordplay.

“Beeecause I need it, alright? If that _bitch_ hadn’t taken it, none of this would’ve happened.”

“Um, actually, we didn’t find it on Eriko,” Yata pointed out, “I found it at… your body.”

“Her body?” Karatsu asked, looking up at her with a confused expression.

“Oh. _Oh!_ You _are_ her!” Numata realized, “The one we found at the shrine. So you’re not dead, that’s… good for you.” Unfortunately, it wasn’t good for them.

“It wasn’t with Eriko? Then… I was wrong? I… I… fuck!” she screamed, “Why did this happen to me!? I just wanted to make some money!”

“I don’t understand what’s going on,” Karatsu said.

Yata looked up at her. “So can you… induce death, basically, right?”

“Yes,” she snapped, petulant, “It’s a technique Eriko and I learned on our spiritual awakening in India.”

“And with the timer, you can bring someone out of it?”

“I came up with the idea to teach rich people how to do it so they can fake their own deaths, for whatever reason, and they pay big. I have a few connections.” She lifted the gun, apparently to explain how she got her hands on it. “Dumb bitch wanted to make sure we taught those non-believers properly, so we weren’t completely desecrating our teacher’s memory.”

“I convinced her to perform the technique at the same time as me, to show our solidarity, that we would work together.” Rie shook her head. “I only went into a trance, and gave her body to some guys to get rid of it, but then I couldn’t find the timer. I thought somehow it was with her, and would go off and she would figure out what I was doing and I panicked.”

“That’s insane,” Iijima said, shaking his head, “How did you even keep this all straight?”

“I don’t know. It’s all I’ve been able to think about. It’s only been a few days, but it feels like it’s been months. I heard about what your group does from some of those underground organization guys. I couldn’t ask them where the body was because they’re already suspicious I’m going to double-cross them and not teach them the technique right and… I guess they’re right not to trust me. Honestly, I going to just take their money and making a run for it, teaching _them_ is impossible.”

“So at the shrine, you pretended, or… you were dead, the timer you had set went off, and the one you accidentally had with you, Eriko’s,” it suddenly struck him the “yo” written on it was in, in fact, the letter E, “fell when you threw your purse around.”

“Then you just had to walk past us, cause it’s not like we’d recognize you, and put the tracker on. Hey, how’d you find us there, anyway?” Numata asked, wiggling his arms a little in the cuffs.

She laughed a little, derisively. “By complete accident, actually. I was going to the school I heard you were based in and you just passed by, so I followed from there. I keep some things in my purse I can use for faking death, just in case.”

“So you’re a yoga instructor who can defy death and has connections to criminal organizations.” Karatsu whistled. “You should write a biography.”

“You all seem… kind of nice, for what I’ve done.” She smiled sadly, holding the gun up again. “I’m not going to kill you.”

She backed up to the front of the room. “A police cordon has been set up,” came an announcement from outside, suddenly, as there’d not even been the sound of a single siren before, “You are surrounded. Please give yourself up peacefully.”

“Hah. I thought it was too quiet,” Rie laughed, slumping against the wall, “I’m not going in. You should close your eyes, well, I guess from what I’ve heard, you’ve seen worse.” She propped the gun under her chin.

“Hey, don’t!” Iijima warned, being the first to speak up, probably with the most noble intentions of the group, “It’s worth more to redeem yourself in this life. You only get the one chance.” He snorted. “Well, maybe two if you hang out with this crowd.”

“Y-you know, prison here isn’t too bad,” Yata guessed.

“We know someone on the force, we can stick up for you? Maybe?” Numata shoddily promised.

Karatsu was quiet, his eyes closed, brows knit in concentration. Daisuke’s slumped body, blood pooled around his head, drew up, staggering on its muscular legs toward Rie. She began to cry… maybe only partially out of horror, the gun dipping a little lower in her grasp. “D-Daisuke…”

“ **Don’t do it… you’ve been such a good teacher… you’re not a bad person… I know you’re not** ,” he said, voice distant, though he was one of the few corpses who ever attempted to hide their shattered face with his hand, “ **Don’t throw your life… away…** ”

She burst into tears like a little girl, throwing her arms around Daisuke’s body and sobbing.

“YOU’RE EARNING POINTS BY TRYING TO SAVE HER, BUT THIS LADY’S _NUTS_ ,” Kereellis said in his best stage whisper.

“Urg, no shit,” Numata grimaced, as Rie pulled away, a lot of blood now in her hair and smeared on her forehead.

“ **Let’s do… one more meditation…** ” The body had some trouble getting into position, but Rie joined him right beside, forming a perfect lotus. She watched Daisuke’s body slowly slump further as his spirit left his body, then turned her head forward again.

Karatsu breathed out, opening his eyes. “Damn, wish she’d taken the cuffs off first,” he huffed, putting his head back against the wall, “Guess we’ll wait for the cops.”

“She might still do it,” Yata said.

“OR YOU COULD DO IT, YE OF UNTIED HANDS. PSYCHO JUST DIED AGAIN.”

“What?” Numata asked, looking over at her, “But she…” Her body fell forward in the same way as Daisuke’s. He grimaced. “Guess we weren’t as inspirational as we thought. Forgot she could do that…”

* * *

 

Karatsu and Sasaki were taking quite a few minutes to explain everything to Sasayama, which Yata and Numata thought was unfair since they’d done most of the crime-solving. Also, Iijima and Makino somehow discovered something to talk about, so they were just there with each other, Numata sitting on the trunk of a police car, Yata standing beside him, trying to ignore the suspicious glares of passing officers like they were the criminals here. Maybe they were just on guard because Iijima had tried to slip away more than once already.

“I don’t think I’ll visit another shrine again,” Numata groaned, “Never. That sucked balls.”

“At least we found everything out, so your pendulum is trustworthy again?”

Numata just looked at him flatly. “Wasn’t worth it.”

“You can’t blame the shrine.” He wanted to go on one of those cutesy dates. He couldn’t resist the idea of chatting about legends and folklore, and because they were on a date, Numata would have to listen.

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t visit another shrine parking lot again,” Numata smirked, very clearly with certain thoughts on his mind, and probably not the same ones as Yata.

Karatsu approached them, looking between the two suspiciously. “Man, that was hard to explain.” He scratched the back of his head. “You guys might have had a better chance. I had to fake a few details.”

“They’ll get the opportunity to explain to _us_ ,” Makino chimed in, breaking away from her conversation with Iijima, “I kinda get the gist, at least. Now I get why, like, that other body we found was just… dead for no reason.”

“While you were busy” —that was certainly one way to put it— “I found all her info. She doesn’t live in Saitama, her parents do, and they’re fairly wealthy,” Sasaki said, with that faint “cha-ching” smile, “And apparently she hadn’t been to see them since she went on her so-called spiritual awakening. I’m sure they’ll appreciate our service.”

“You seem happy,” Iijima finally said, bending his head back and forth to crack his neck, “As much fun as it is to hang with you guys, I’m gonna take off.” As he reclaimed his bike from the back of the car, Sasayama sauntered over, cane clacking.

“Alright, you’re all free to go. Keep out of trouble, Iijima.”

Iijima nodded. “See you guys.”

“Thanks for your help,” Yata said, “I couldn’t have gotten here without you.”

Iijima smirked. “If it happens again, you’re riding the handlebars.” He swung a leg over his bike, and raised a hand in farewell as he coasted away.

“Thanks old man,” Karatsu said, “We’ll get out of your, er, hair now.”

“Oh ha ha, pot, kettle, black,” Sasayama frowned, “I’ve convinced them to let me handle this, no one’s really up for this kind of mess. We found that timer you told me about, except I’m not sure how we could keep her from doing it again… she’ll have a twenty-four hour guard. Can’t imagine the amount of therapy she’s going to take.”

“I can recommend a good psychiatrist,” Sasaki offered, with a convincing smile.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Sasayama said, clearly not falling for it, “When you guys end up _costing_ us, sometimes I like to think about what it’d be like if we raided that little room of yours.” His satisfactory expression was a little worrying now. “But not this time. Get out of here.” He walked off, a uniformed officer coming to his side with something in his hands to discuss.

“AND ALL THIS STARTED BECAUSE YOUR HUMAN LIBIDOS. WHAT A CUTE LITTLE WONDERFUL PLANET I ARRIVED ON.” Kereellis’s face squashed, as though he were considering this. “I’M GOING TO CAST MY VOTE FOR EARTH’S DESTRUCTION AT THE NEXT CONFERENCE.”

“Alright, you’re taking us all back home,” Sasaki instructed to Numata, “And Yata’s first. Having you two alone seems to be bad luck.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ve had a tough enough day already without you getting on us too, okay?” Numata sulked, pulling open the door.

* * *

They pulled up in front of Yata’s apartment building, and he got out of the backseat. For some reason, Makino was looking at him expectantly. Karatsu was pointedly looking away, and Sasaki had a purely clinical expression. “Um. Bye?”

Makino sighed. “You guys are _so_ not cute.” Yata really had no idea what she wanted, and noted that Numata was staring at the steering wheel like it would disappear if he took an eye off it. Maybe she thought they’d kiss goodbye or…?

“DON’T ENCOURAGE THEM!” Kereellis called out.

There was no recovery from that. “See you,” he sputtered, turning so he could jog quickly up the stairwell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title makes sense, right? It's a yoga pose? Get it?
> 
> Iijima should really be in more fics.


End file.
